“Yes.”
“Better bring me half a dozen biscuits and gravy, too.”
“Oh, my, you gentlemen do have big appetites,” Annie said. She turned away from the table.
“Wait a minute, ma’am, you haven’t taken our orders yet,” Falcon said.
“What?” Annie gasped.
“Never mind,” Falcon said. “Just bring some extra plates, we’ll share his.”
Annie laughed. “You had me going for a minute there.”
When Annie brought the food out—it took her several trips—Falcon waited until the last trip, then he held up his hand. “You said welcome to your café. Does that mean you are Annie?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Annie, we’re looking for our niece. We have every reason to believe that she was brought here against her will. Would you know anything about that?”
The sudden and frightened expression on Annie’s face was all the answer Falcon needed.
“No,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. Will this be all?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Annie walked away, and as the food was distributed, Falcon spoke to his two brothers.
“Did you see the expression on her face when I asked the question? She knows something.”
“Yes, but she’s too frightened to tell us anything,” Morgan said.
“She’s told us that Mary Kate is here,” Falcon said. “She wouldn’t have reacted like that if she didn’t know.”
A few moments later Annie returned to the table. “I like men with a good appetite,” she said. “Here’s your bill.” She put a piece of paper down in front of Falcon. The total cost of the breakfast was four dollars and fifty cents. But that wasn’t the only thing written on the bill.
She is in jail.
“Thank you, Annie, that is the best breakfast I’ve eaten in a long time,” Falcon said as he paid her. He didn’t share her note with his brothers until they were outside.
“I met the town marshal last night,” Falcon said. “I think it’s time I introduced you to him.”
The three men walked down the street to the marshal’s office, then went in. The office was empty.
“Anyone here?” Falcon called.
Matthew pointed to a door at the back of the office. “That must go to the cells,” he said.
Falcon opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “Mary Kate, are you here?” he called.
They walked up and down the corridor from one end to the other. Every cell was empty. Mary Kate was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Now, why do you suppose the major is blowin’ that trumpet like that?” Tina asked.
“It isn’t a trumpet, it’s a bugle. And the major doesn’t blow it, he has somebody else blow it,” Dorothy said.
“If he’s really a major, what’s he doin’ here in Purgatory?” Janette asked.
“He’s not really a major,” Amy said.
“Well, he goes around wearin’ that uniform all the time,” Janette said.
“I hear he got kicked out of the army,” Tina said.
“What for?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never heard.”
So far Mary Kate had not spoken one word, because she was sure she knew why Ackerman was having the bugle blown. She knew that, by this time, her absence from jail had been discovered.
Another girl that Mary Kate had not yet seen came into the dining room then. Picking up a plate, she walked over to the buffet.
“Good morning, Jolene. We didn’t think we would see you this morning,” Liz said.
“I wasn’t goin’ to come down to breakfast, but when that horn got blowed this mornin’, Bobby said that was ‘Recall,’ and that meant he had to report back to the barracks.”
“Bobby?” Amy asked.
“Jerrod,” Jolene said.
Mary Kate shivered at the thought that one of Ackerman’s men had been so close.
“Who is this?” Jolene asked, looking toward Mary Kate.
“This is Belle,” Dorothy said. “She’s just joined us.”
“Welcome to the House of Pleasure, Belle,” Jolene said with a smile. Her plate filled now, she sat at the table with the others. “I wonder what the major has planned? Bobby said they were all going to make a lot of money, soon.”
“If you would excuse me, I’m not feeling very well,” Mary Kate said. “I think I’ll go up to my room.”
“It was awfully nice meeting you, Belle,” Dorothy said. “And I hope you enjoy being here with us.”
Every man in the Raiders was standing in formation in front of the barracks, including Hood and Fong, who had only just joined. In uniform, and carrying a baton, Ackerman paced back and forth in front of the formation.
“Men, our incompetent marshal allowed our woman to get away during the night. Jerrod, I want you and Smith to ride back south along the trail to see if you can find any trace of her. Baker, you and Waters go north. Go no more than five miles, then return. I just checked, and her horse is still in the stable, so it is my belief that she is still in town. So we are going to begin a search. I want every room of every building in town searched. Sergeant Casey?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the men started, then come with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Casey said.
Casey divided the men who remained after the four riders left, put half on one side and half on the other, instructing them to look for the woman.
“Me ’n Hood have never seen her,” Fong said. “We don’t know what she looks like.”
“You’ve been in town long enough to know that there are no women here except whores, haven’t you?” Casey asked.
“Annie ain’t no whore,” Hood said.
“All right, it’s easy. Just look for a woman that ain’t a whore and ain’t Annie,” Casey said.
With the assignments given, Casey joined Ackerman, and they walked out into the middle of Street With No Name, halfway between each end. Ackerman pulled his pistol and shot it, three times, into the air.
“Listen to me!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Everyone, come out of the buildings and listen to me!” He fired three more shots into the air. “Everyone, out of the buildings and listen to me!”
“All right, girls,” Gladys said. “You heard the man, out onto the balcony.”
“Well, what do you think he is up to now?” Tina asked.
“I’m sure he’ll tell us,” Gladys said.
Mary Kate looked over at Gladys with a frightened expression on her face.
“Belle, come over here for a second before you go out, would you? I need your help with something,” Gladys said.
The other girls, paying no attention to Mary Kate and Gladys, went out onto the second-floor balcony, as much from curiosity as from being ordered to appear.
“Honey, you need to go out there so that none of the girls get suspicious,” Gladys said. “But don’t worry, with that getup and your makeup, your own mama wouldn’t recognize you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me. I’ve been in this business for more than thirty years now. I know what I’m talking about.”
“All right, I trust you,” Mary Kate said hopefully.
Cautiously, and with no small amount of trepidation, Mary Kate went out onto the balcony to join the other girls. The others, curious as to what was going on, crowded the bannister and strained to get a good look. Mary Kate stayed back away from the bannister, as did Hector.
“Aren’t you curious, my dear?” Hector asked.
“Not particularly. I haven’t been here long enough to be curious.”
“Well, it isn’t that I’m not curious but, someone of my particular uh, predilection, has no business being seen in public. It can only bode evil for me.”
“Well then, we shall keep each other company, shan’t we?”
“Indeed, we shall,” Hector said.
Gradually people began comi
ng out of the saloons, the café, the hotel, the barbershop, the livery, the leather shop, the gun shop, and the general store. They stood on the boardwalks that lined both sides of the street and looked out toward Ackerman, who was now replacing the cartridges in his pistol. He looked up when he saw everyone had come out.
“Sometime during the night, a woman prisoner escaped from jail,” Ackerman shouted. “I want her back, and I want her back unharmed. I will pay two hundred dollars to anyone who finds her and brings her back to me.”
“Two hunnert dollars?” one of the men shouted.
“Two hundred dollars,” Ackerman repeated. “Now, start searching!”
Jones and Jerrod went over to the House of Pleasure and, looking up, saw all the girls out on the balcony.
“Gladys,” Jones called. “Get all your whores down in the reception room now.”
“Why do you want us there, honey? We’re all out here now.”
“Because I said so,” Jones said.
“All right, girls, you heard the man,” Gladys said. “Let’s go down to the reception room.”
Mary Kate took a deep breath and folded her hands into fists. Gladys sensed her tensing up and walked over to put her arm around her. “Honey, just act natural, smile a lot, and everything will be all right. Trust me.”
Mary Kate bit her bottom lip, then followed the other girls back downstairs and into the parlor. A moment later Jones and Jerrod came in. Mary Kate knew both of them very well, having been with both of them night and day from the moment she was taken.
“All right, are you sure ever’ one is in here?” Jones asked. “We aim to search ever’ room, and it’ll go hard on anyone who ain’t in here.”
“We’re all here, Sweetie, even I,” Hector said. “But when you’re all through searching, you might want to come back and see me. I can give you a real good time.”
The other girls laughed, including Mary Kate, who was thankful to Hector for giving her something to laugh at.
Jones and Jerrod make a quick perusal of all the girls in the reception room and, satisfied, began their search of the rest of the house. Mary Kate relaxed, noticeably, and again Gladys came over to her.
“You did well,” she said quietly.
Falcon, Morgan, and Matthew were standing out in front of the jail looking over the street, which was unusually crowded. “What do we do now, Falcon?” Morgan asked.
“It’s not like we can go around asking people about her, is it?” Falcon said. “The whole town is looking for her. And since Ackerman insisted that she be returned unharmed, we may as well let them do the work for us. I suggest we go have a beer. But not at the Pig Palace, I wasn’t that impressed with it last night.”
“I can’t say much for the Rattlesnake Den, either,” Matthew said.
“The Bloody Bucket wasn’t the best saloon I’ve ever been in,” Morgan said. “But it wasn’t the worst.”
“All right, the Bloody Bucket it is.”
At that same moment, Peggy went into Annie’s Café.
“What’s all the excitement, the horn blowin’, the shootin’, and the yellin’ about?” Annie asked.
“You remember the woman I told you about last night? The one that I took supper to?”
“Yes, indeed, I remember.”
Peggy smiled. “Well, she escaped from jail, and Ackerman is having a conniption fit. He’s got the whole town out lookin’ for her, and he’s put a two-hundred-dollar reward out for her.”
“I know where she is,” Annie said.
“You do?” Peggy was surprised by Annie’s pronouncement.
“Yes, her uncles found her and have taken her somewhere.”
“What? What uncles are you talking about?”
There was nobody else in the café at the moment, but Annie looked around anyway before she spoke.
“I probably shouldn’t have done this, and please don’t tell anyone,” Annie said. “But the girl’s three uncles were here for breakfast. They were such nice men, such a departure from the men that we have here, that I told them.”
“You told them what?”
“I told them that their niece was in jail. Please tell me that I didn’t make a big mistake.”
Peggy grinned. “You didn’t make a big mistake, but you did make a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” Annie asked anxiously.
“She wasn’t in jail this morning because I let her out last night.”
Now a big smile spread across Annie’s face. “You did? Oh, how marvelous! But, where is she? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,” Annie said, holding out her hand. “I’m just the kind of addle head that might say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Just tell me that Ackerman’s men aren’t going to find her.”
“They aren’t going to find her,” Peggy insisted.
“Oh, but her uncles are still looking for her.”
“What do her uncles look like?”
“Big men, all three of them. Strong looking, if you know what I mean, with broad shoulders. They’re all good-looking men, too. If I was thirty years younger . . . oh, never mind,” Annie said with a laugh. “Listen to an old woman goin’ on about being thirty years younger.”
“I wonder if they are still in town,” Peggy said.
“I expect they are,” Annie said. “They don’t look to me like the kind of men who give up very easy.”
“I must try and find them.”
“You two!” a couple of men shouted as they came in through the front door.
Turning toward them, Peggy recognized Mo Fong and Harvey Hood. They were easy to recognize, as they had been in town for nearly a month and had spent most of their time in the Bloody Bucket.
“What do you want, Fong?” Peggy asked.
“What do you mean, what do I want? Haven’t you heard? Major Ackerman brought a woman into town yesterday, and durin’ the night, she escaped.”
Peggy laughed. “That’s the thing about some men,” she said. “They can’t hang on to their women, even if they have ’em locked up in jail.”
“It ain’t funny. The major is some upset about it, and he wants her back. We’re searchin’ the whole town.”
“Well, you can easily see that she isn’t here,” Annie said. “So go somewhere else to search,” she added with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til we search real good. That means we’re goin’ to look into the kitchen.”
“Don’t you go into my kitchen, you filthy things!” Annie said.
Both Fong and Hood pulled their pistols. “We’re goin’ into your kitchen,” Fong said.
Annie and Peggy watched helplessly as the two men went into the kitchen. They could hear them moving pots and pans around, sometimes obviously throwing them onto the floor.
“Be careful in there!” Annie called.
At that moment Falcon came in through the front door.
“Hello, Annie,” he said. “My brothers and I were wondering . . .”
“That’s him!” Annie gasped. “That’s one of them! One of the girl’s uncles.”
At that moment Fong and Hood came back out of the kitchen, still holding their pistols.
“All right, she ain’t . . . ,” Fong started, then he saw Falcon. “MacCallister!” he said. He and Hood both raised their pistols. “Major Ackerman said you would be comin’ after the girl he brung with him, and here you are.”
“I’ll just bet you didn’t expect to ever see me ’n Mo again, did you, MacCallister?” Hood asked.
“As a matter of fact I didn’t. I thought you two were in prison down in Colorado,” Falcon said.
“We was, but we broke out,” Fong said. “Just like you must ’a broke out that girl that Major Ackerman is lookin’ for.”
“You know what, Mo. I’ll bet if we take him down to Major Ackerman, he could make him talk.”
“I don’t want to take him down to Ackerman,” Fong said.
“What do you want to do with him?”
“I want to kill him,” Fong said, a broad smile spreading across his face. He put his thumb on the hammer of his pistol to pull it back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fong and Hood didn’t get the hammers pulled back on their pistols. With a draw that was so fast it was a blur, Falcon pulled his gun and shot twice. The shots were so close together that it sounded like one, even to Peggy and Annie, who witnessed it, and, seeing both Fong and Hood go down, knew that he had shot twice.
“Are they the only two in here?” Falcon asked, smoke still curling up from the gun in his hand.
“Yes,” Annie said. “How did you do that? Both of them had their guns out and were about to shoot.”
“I just got lucky, I guess.”
“You are Mary Kate’s uncle, aren’t you?” Peggy asked.
“Yes. Do you know Mary Kate? Do you know where she is?”
“Yes, I’m the one that let her out of jail last night. I have her somewhere safe.”
“That’s good to know,” Falcon said. “Keep her safe for me. It will make my job easier.”
“What job?”
“Cleaning out this town.”
“What? How do you propose to clean out this entire town all by yourself?”
“I’m not by myself,” Falcon said. “I have my two brothers with me.”
“Still, Ackerman has a lot of men with him. These two you just killed didn’t even join him until last night. He has a whole army with him.”
“Do you know exactly how many he has?”
“Well, I can figure it out,” Peggy said. “He has Casey, Jones, Boyle, Smith . . .”
“He doesn’t have Boyle anymore. I killed him back in Lincoln.”
“All right, I won’t count him. There’s also Waters, Baker, Jerrod, and Powell. That’s how many? Seven”
“Except for Ackerman himself, I don’t think any of the others you named would recognize me on sight.”
“You forgot the Hastings,” Annie said. “That’s two new men he picked up since he was here last.”
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